Do you ever have this happen to you? You see a book and immediately memories come flooding back, both childhood and grandma and the smell of pancakes? in the mornings... well, that's how it is for me, but for you, perhaps, you have a dacha, and summer, and a bicycle. Or mom, and sweet potion, and lying in bed all day because you're sick, and reading, reading, reading... Everyone has their own childhood, but we all had the same books, and many of us have the same sweet squeeze in our hearts, and I want to open it, reread it, remember it, and share this bright and heart-wrenching thing with my children.
And we do so, and sometimes it’s a hit, we read it voraciously, and reread it, and the book is still just as good, both for us and for the children. Uspensky is like that. “Uncle Fyodor” is still the same: both in books and on TV. And with the new cartoons, it has taken on new colors, become even closer and more understandable to children. And there’s nothing to say about “Down the Magic River.” It has all our favorite characters, and our children also really like them: Baba Yaga and Leshy, Koschei and Vasilisa the Wise, Zmey Gorynych and Bayun the Cat. They ask for it again and again, again and again. And the book is not small, but they know it by heart. I can’t read it anymore, I get sad, sometimes I fall asleep, sometimes I get confused in the words. And they always stop me and correct me: “Mom, not in a human voice, but in a human voice!” And then we watch an old film together, and they like it, and they ask for more. And off we go: Marya-Morevna, Fire, Water and Copper Pipes, Morozko, Varvara-Beauty – another bridge that you can take your children across and show them what we lived like when we were little.
And sometimes it turns out funny. Many modern parents have probably encountered this: you take Chukovsky, start reading to your little one. This is one of his first books, and it's great and fun: here we are, already reading books! And then...
And what kind of mother is she?
Agree to give
My dear child -
A bear cub, a wolf cub, a baby elephant,
So that the unfed scarecrow
Poor little thing
it's exhausting!
They cry, they grieve,
With the kids forever
say goodbye.
And now you start to skip words, and change them on the go: "He was running along the path, and his... legs got rubbed," and you don't understand how it's possible that you didn't remember about these cut legs, and that means they didn't really hurt you as a child, but you can't read that to a child! Or "Mishka's Porridge": their mother left them alone at the dacha and went to the city. And they were probably about eight years old there, and they were cooking porridge for themselves. Here the child's eyes widen, and he doesn't understand: "Why did their mother leave them alone?" Well, what can you say? Because that's how it was before. Now it's different, and some things are already very difficult to explain. But you can try. Open the book, say, you know, when I was little, and... go!
Leave a comment